I went to synagogue this past weekend for a bat mitzvah of a family friend.

Coming from an Orthodox background, it’s not something I have done many times in my life. Yet I was very happy to be there, to celebrate a family friend, to support, and to experience a different kind of Jewish space.

The moment that stayed with me, though, wasn’t the bat mitzvah speech, a prayer, or a melody.

It was a father watching a soccer game on his phone during Shabbat services.

He was sitting in the row in front of me with his son right next to him, and his wife and daughter a few feet to his right. From the outside, it looked like a beautiful picture of Jewish continuity: a family attending synagogue together. But as I saw the  phone on top of his prayer book as the Bat Mitzvah girl’s voice rose in reading from the Torah, I couldn’t help but think about the message that moment might have been sending to his son.

Of course, this was just one moment, and not representative of everyone there. And in many ways, the experience as a whole was warm and welcoming. People were friendly, the atmosphere relaxed, and the community clearly cared about creating an accessible........

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